Thursday, January 11, 2018

Russell Lissau at Wizard World Chicago 2017

Russell Lissau is a staff writer at The Daily Herald. More relative to the world of pop culture, he is also a comic book writer. Actually, as a teenager, those two jobs would have been my dream combination.

Writing for comic books is a challenging and often thankless job. The brilliant artwork overshadows the writing and certainly gets more exposure. At comic cons, the artist booths are filled with colorful, larger-than-life artwork. What can comic book writers do in their booths? It's hard to promote the writing, but it is obviously a vital part of every comic book. Among his credits, he has written many issues of The Batman Strikes.

One of his projects that really fascinates me is Old Wounds, a comic book published a couple years ago. Lissau, along with artist John Bivens, create a story showing the after-effects of a superhero's life of crime-fighting. It is unique and fresh to look at the later life consequences of being a superhero.

I met Lissau at Wizard World Chicago 2017, where he was busy meeting his fans and doing the usual comic con business. I look forward to talking to him more at convention this year.